After thinking my mobo was defective because of the looseness of the xfi card and how the sound would go out after an amount of time I dropped $160 on a new mobo and after 6 hours of messing with it I have come to the conclusion that now I have 2 shit mobos(which I can RMA) and a shit sound card(which I can RMA). The real burner is that I think I managed to damage my processor somehow during the process of removing it, see the geniuses at magic micro who built this computer decided that a heat sink that you practically have to rip off is good for the processor in the midst of getting this monster off I took the processor with it(release handle is unreachable with sink on). The computer works as im using it now but I have a rather strange problem. Now I can only run the computer with memory in the B channel, if I put any in A it will not post it will start but the screen is completely dark. I have called ASUS about 8 times and I am convinced they have the worst customer support I have ever seen. I got answers ranging from the memory being bad and to call samsung to just rma the mobo again....... almost all of them were completely rude also and the manager I asked to talk to(after being put on hold for about 20 minutes) was an asshole too. I was completely nice to them too. My calls concluded with them giving me a RMA number. I wasnt convinced that it was what they said so I put my old mobo in and IT HAD THE SAME EXACT PROBLEM, only would run with memory in the B channel. Now I am stumpted, I was always taught if your processor is damaged it will show drastic change and it will be obvious. I cannot figure this out any ideas???? Oh and bassmasta you were right.... wish you would of told me that before I bought the mobo even though im still not sure the sound card is bad as I gave my old ZS which was having the same problems to a friend and it works fine

FYI - readability is just and <Enter> key away. feel free to press it in between thoughts. Reading that is kinda like that guy who can say a million things without taking a breath...it just goes on & on & on...anyway...

Does a single stick work in the A channel? See if 512 will boot
If yes, I'd say you might have a weak memory controller...

Do you have any OC on the RAM/Processor?
What you described with the heatsink removal is common. If you didn't bend any pins the processor is fine.

Have you tried setting it to lower RAM (not sure of AMD dividers) like 533 or 633 or whatever it is? My bro's PC has 4x512 and won't run @ ddr400 (its skt 939) all stix are rated at 400, but I think the memory controller on the board can't handle it...thats also an asus.

And even if your frustrated, you really could have left the last part of your post off...just delete everything after the ? mark...

I've got a messed up X-Fi Elite Pro, it never ever worked in XP - xp would boot and just say there was an unrecognized device. With Vista, it just won't boot if the hardware isn't 100% ok...

As for the ram issue, it could well be a CPU issue, considering that your memory controller is on your CPU itself, whereas most of the users around here are on Intel's where the memory controller is located in the northbridge. Ask around, try to borrow someone elses AMD see if it solves the issue.

yes and It will not run in A at all.... nothing will, even known good sticks. I have come to the conclusion that my A channel will not work. I can put anything in B1 and B2 and it works. I ran orthos for 24 hours and no errors with the B channel full. But since my computer wont post with anything in A obviously cant test that.

id say one of the pins thats connected to the a channel is snapped. id check your cpu, let it heat up a bit before removing hs to make it easier to remove, with gentle twisting it should come off easy,

id say one of the pins thats connected to the a channel is snapped. id check your cpu, let it heat up a bit before removing hs to make it easier to remove, with gentle twisting it should come off easy,

HELL YEAH!!! I looked at it before and saw nothing but after you said that I decided to get the magnifying glass out and one of those little bastards was bent!!! I got out my eyeglass repair kit and used the tiny screw driver to fix it and now it works fine!!! hahah awesome just saved me alot of money.